


Wake Me

by orphan_account



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, pricefield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 00:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6400435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re pretty,” Chloe says automatically, and that gets Max to give her an amused smile.</p><p>“Wow, much smooth, so suave,” Max says, and she rotates her notebook in her lap. “What do you wanna do today?”<br/>---<br/>Post Episode 5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake Me

**Author's Note:**

> TRYING TO PRACTICE DIALOGUE B/C I FORGOT HOW TO DO THAT WELL TOO (tbh i need practice in a lot of things...)
> 
> thank hannah and amy for lookin over this lmao
> 
> i'm just posting small one-shots to try and get back into the groove of things  
> woops i forgot to say Wake Me from Message to Bears is the song title lmao

Chloe stirs awake when the whisper of a breeze brushes her hair, and she blinks in the soft morning light of their hotel room, white bedsheets painted light gold as daylight spills in through the open window. She squints for a moment, making out Max sitting in the chair by the window, notebook in her lap, pencil in her hand, face focused. The curtains drift to and fro, casting warm shadows on the carpet, gentle and quiet. When Chloe takes a deep breath, she can taste the salt from the ocean and she licks her lips.

When she gathers the energy to push herself up, Max only murmurs a quiet ‘good morning.’ Not in an alarming way, but Chloe’s hand clenches a little around the sheets. Max has always been a quiet kind of person but the past few weeks -- after that day -- have made Chloe anxious, a low feeling in the pit of her stomach that pokes and prods her anytime she sees Max somewhere else, mind faraway and in a time that’s long past. Leaning back against the headboard, Chloe watches Max silhouetted by the morning and almost dreamlike as the sea breeze tugs at the ends of her brown hair.

There’s a long, but not uncomfortable, silence before Chloe speaks.

“What are you thinking about?” Her throat’s a bit dry, but she gets it out.

Max’s response comes in a neutral tone. “I’m trying not to.”

“Why?”

Max’s pencil pauses above the paper, and she purses her lips. Chloe doesn’t miss the tension in the lines on Max’s forehead, the way Max’s fingers grip the pencil a little more tightly.

She doesn’t have to say anything for Chloe to understand. “I get it,” Chloe says, and Max’s shoulders lower a little in relief, and she gets back to drawing again.

Chloe shoves down a bag of Doritos for breakfast -- between the loud bouts of crunching, she doesn’t miss Max’s chuckle. “You want some too?” Chloe asks, and Max shakes her head, rolling her eyes. It’s the small things Chloe does -- Chloe thinks they make Max feel a bit more normal. Last week, she heard Max laugh when she tried to eat five twinkies in a minute. Freeing Max from whatever still tethers her back to Arcadia Bay lets Chloe breathe a little easier at night, lets Chloe hope that maybe the nightmares won’t come clawing their way back into Max’s mind again.

They do, sometimes. But it’s getting better.

Chloe drags another chair across the carpet and uses one foot to nudge it into place in front of Max, and then the two of them sit next to the window, the cool wind drifting in from the sea.

“What are you drawing?” Chloe asks.

Max bites the corner of her lip before answering, erasing a stray mark on the paper. “The ocean. It’s really pretty.”

“You’re pretty,” Chloe says automatically, and that gets Max to give her an amused smile.

“Wow, much smooth, so suave,” Max says, and she rotates her notebook in her lap. “What do you wanna do today?”

Chloe chews on the inside of her cheek, leaning her shoulder on the windowsill and gazing at the beach just past the sidewalk. Max’s aunt and uncle were kind enough to let them stay at their summer beach house in LA. They’re not here of course -- it’s early spring, but nonetheless the view is breathtaking and the ocean is shining and glittering blue in the face of the white sun. Probably too cold to go swimming and she’s not in the mood for getting hypothermia. Could chill out at the beach. Or in the beachhouse.

Chloe shrugs. “When did you wake up?”

“At eight,” Max says, and she adjusts her grip on her pencil. “It’s eleven right now.”

“Just drawing this whole time?”

“Yeah,” Max says. “I still write in my journal too, I just haven’t really sat down and actually drawn in it for a while.”

Chloe’s seen Max write in it over the past few weeks -- at pit stops, at motels, at wherever they stop for just a few minutes. One time she even saw Max sit down at the base of a tree and scrawl in her journal before putting it away and staring out at the rolling hills out in the distance. It’d puzzled Chloe at first -- but she let Max have her time and space. Space and time…

“You write about how cool I am?” Chloe asks, turning in her chair so her legs dangle off the armrest, back leaning against the windowsill.

“Chloe, the point of a diary is that it’s private,” Max says, raising an eyebrow, but there’s humor to her tone too. “And who said you were cool anyway?”

Chloe snorts, throwing her hands up. “Alright, smartass. Seriously though, you just writing about our adventures and stuff?”

Max sighs, hand paused over the paper before turning to look out the window. “I didn’t really start a journal until I got accepted to Blackwell. I’ve been trying to keep up with it ever since…”

The way her voice drifts into nothing tells Chloe enough. “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” she says, heart beating a little more loudly in her chest. Reminding Max of that week is the last thing she wants to do. “What do you draw? Squirrels and shit?”

Max glances back at her, but she continues drawing. “Not just animals. I draw landscapes, people, too. I put stickers in it if I have them.”

Chloe almost wants to ask Max if she’s ever drawn her before, but that might be crossing a line. Before she can say anything though, Max pipes up, “I...Joyce told me you were at Blackwell once.”

Chloe shifts in her seat, afraid that talking about that fucking school will bring back memories of someone that neither of them want to remember. She says slowly, “Yeah, once.”

Max purses her lips again, glancing up and meeting Chloe’s eye. “Did you...take art there too?”

Letting out a huff, Chloe puts her hands behind her head, staring at the wall across from them. “No, I was in choir. It’s what my scholarship was for.”

“I knew it,” Max says under her breath. When Chloe looks at her with raised eyebrows, Max’s cheeks go a little pink .”I just -- I remember how well you sang. You were great, Chloe.”

Damn. Now Chloe’s face feels a little hot. “Thanks, I don’t sing much anymore though.”

Chloe doesn’t have to look to know what Max is feeling -- or what she’s figuring out. Singing brought her some joy after her dad died and William left, but after finding Rachel and dropping out...She found better ways to feel better about herself. Sort of.

There’s another silence between the two of them, the only sounds being the slight rustle of the curtains and the scratching of Max’s pencil on paper. Eventually when the angle of the light steepens, marking a time closer to noon, does Max finally say, “I think I saw a ukulele stand down the beach. If we get one of those, I could play it.”

Chloe sits up fully and glances at Max. “Lemme guess. You want me to try singing again.”

Max’s innocent smile is more than enough to annihilate Chloe’s resolve, but she tries not to show it. “Really, Max? I don’t think I’d sound so good. Haven’t done it in years.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t try.”

“Hm, let me think--”

“Chloe, c’mon!” Max gives Chloe a playful shove on the shoulder, and Chloe grins back at her.

“Alright, alright, okay, we’ll get a damn ukulele and be hippies singing on the beach in the middle of the day.”

Max brightens up so much that Chloe thinks for a dumb second that Max is brighter than the sun, but that’s some young adult fiction novel bullshit, so she shakes her head to clear it -- Max is  _ way _ better and worth more than some shit book about teens falling in love. A voice in the back of her mind whispers that’s what they are, though.

Max sets her notebook down on the windowsill before zooming towards her bag, already chattering excitedly away about some of her favorite tunes, and Chloe sneaks a glance at Max’s drawing and does a double take -- it’s the two of them sitting on the beach, holding hands, with an ocean stretching before them.


End file.
